Up until now, I feel like we haven’t really been “parenting,” but more like “keeping the baby alive.” Emmie’s always been pretty cautious, so we haven’t had to set a lot of limits yet. We tell her not to do something and she generally doesn’t do it.

Well, as we all knew, that isn’t going to last long. She’s definitely starting to test boundaries already, doing things like dangling her sippy cup over the edge of her high chair, looking at us to see if we are watching, then dropping it just to get a reaction. *Sigh* It’s only going to get harder.

Peter and I are now coming to the point where we really need to start communicating about what things are OK and what aren’t. Which cabinets are OK to play in? Which ones are off-limits? What kinds of things do we let her put in her mouth? In general, the rules are that she can have anything that isn’t dangerous, but we don’t always have the same opinion on what is dangerous (usually because Peter has a much better awareness of the potential lead content in random objects made in China, but I’m learning).

It’s also been really interesting having a video monitor. In our old condo, the place was so tiny that I could hear her no matter where I was. Now that I can be twice as far from her, or on a different floor, I knew we needed another solution. When I saw a video monitor pop up on kidswoot.com, I decided to go for it based on the recommendation of a friend. It. Is. Awesome. And terrifying. Now when Emmie cries at midnight for her feeding (and I’ve decided enough is enough and she should be damn well used to the new house by now, so we are going to try crying it out a little bit, Missy), I can see her cry for a second or two, look to the door to see if anyone is coming, cry, look, cry, look, etc. etc. for about 4 minutes. Then she lays down, rolls over and goes to sleep for another 4 hours. Are you freaking kidding me? Baby has been playing her mama, HARD.

Ah, well. It’s a good thing she’s cute!